Jane Akre is the News Editor for the National News Desk of Injuryboard:
I've been involved in news since 1978 when I got my first job in a radio station, "Ripping and Reading" the news as they called it when there were actual news wires. (And working as the weekend DJ- fun!)
A career in television news took me from Albuquerque to Tucson, St. Louis to San Francisco, then in the mid-80s, onto a little upstart news organization known as "Chicken Noodle News" better known today as CNN.
A few markets in Florida had me anchoring and reporting the news until I ran into a big story on synthetic bovine growth hormone, produced by former chemical giant, Monsanto!
Monsanto can afford very good lawyers who write very descriptive letters which had the intended effect. The Fox station never ran the story we produced and my husband and I lost our jobs.
Ultimately, a whistleblower lawsuit we filed against Fox, resulted in a $425,000 award. The jury agreed that I lost my job for threatening to go to the FCC with the station's efforts to slant and falsify the rBGH story, following the Monsanto threats. But Fox appealed and won on the argument that technically there is no law, rule or regulation against news distortion!
Impressive argument for a news organization to make.
Some awards along the way include a 2001 Goldman Prize for environmental reporting, and a 1998 Society of Professional Journalists Award for Ethics, among others. I wrote a portion of "Into the Buzzsaw" (Prometheus 2002, 2004), an anthology by reporters who have had their stories spiked and appeared in the documentary, The Corporation.
I belong to media organizations that like to remind citizens that the public airwaves belong to them, and it's time to take them back!